Take a weekly awe walk
Walk with the explicit intention of seeking something vast or wondrous — shifting your attention outward rather than inward.
Why it works
A standard walk engages the default mode network’s self-referential processing: people use walks to think about themselves, plan, and ruminate. An awe walk — one taken with an explicit attitude of curiosity and openness to wonder — shifts attention away from the self-narrative toward the external world, producing the "small self" effect: a temporary quieting of the ego that is reliably associated with increased positive affect.
How to do it
- Schedule a 20-minute walk with one intention: to notice something vast, beautiful, or hard to explain.
- Leave earphones behind.
- When you notice something that produces even a mild sense of wonder, stop and attend to it fully for at least 30 seconds.
- Afterward, spend two minutes writing one sentence about what you noticed.
Evidence
Sturm et al. (2020) found that eight weeks of weekly awe walks produced greater well-being, more prosocial emotions, and reduced self-focused attention compared to standard walks, in older adults — a randomized controlled design. Bai et al. (2017) grounds the underlying "small self" mechanism the walk targets, showing awe shrinks the self and increases collective engagement across cultures. (rct)
The study was in older adults; generalizability to other age groups and the precise dose required are not yet established.
Sources
- Sturm et al. (2020), "Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults," Emotion
- Sturm, V. E., Datta, S., Roy, A. R. K., Sible, I. J., Kosik, E. L., Veziris, C. R., Chow, T. E., Morris, N. A., Neuhaus, J., Kramer, J. H., Miller, B. L., Holley, S. R., & Keltner, D. (2022). Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults. Emotion, 22(5), 1044–1058.
- Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., Chen, S., Gordon, A. M., Stellar, J. E., McNeil, G. D., Peng, K., & Keltner, D. (2017). Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 185–209.
Common mistake
Taking the walk but listening to a podcast or music — this keeps attention inward and negates the attention-outward mechanism.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Awe and Well-Being, Made Practical
- Use documentary and large-scale art to trigger awe
Watch content that conveys genuine vastness — deep space, ecosystems, historical scale — with full attention rather than as background.
- Write from a small-self perspective after awe
After an awe experience, write briefly from the perspective of someone whose personal concerns feel appropriately small.
- Attend to moral beauty as an everyday awe source
Notice and dwell on acts of extraordinary virtue, skill, or dedication — a common awe trigger that most people overlook.
- Use awe to expand perceived time
Deliberately induce awe when you feel time-pressured or rushed — awe reliably slows perceived time and reduces the feeling of scarcity.
- Build a personal catalog of micro-awe triggers
Identify the small, reliable stimuli in your everyday environment that reliably produce a mild sense of wonder — and use them deliberately.
- Use awe to reconnect with something larger than yourself
When awe makes the self feel small, follow the natural impulse toward belonging — toward community, nature, or humanity at large.
Related concepts
- Awe and the Small Self
Keltner’s science of wonder — the small self, moral beauty, and why awe heals
- Awe Walks, and the Science of Wonder
Why wonder quiets the self, and how to walk for it on purpose
- Positive Psychology, Made Practical
PERMA and the well-being exercises, graded honestly on the evidence
- Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical
Using positive emotions not just as rewards but as resources that build lasting psychological strength